Article
All licensed disks were made with “Nintendo” impressed at the bottom of each one. The “I” and second “N” in “Nintendo” were impressed slightly deeper than the rest of the letters. It was this indentation that not only identified a disk as made for Nintendo’s Disk System, but it also permitted disks with the indentation to be loaded, due to a matching raised “Nintendo” inside the Disk System.
A number of pirate companies found ways to bypass this lockout feature without directly stealing the name “Nintendo.” Some pirate companies avoided using the “Nintendo” indentation by simply modifying “Nintendo” to say something different. In some cases, they made the disk match the raised “Nintendo” by putting holes in place of Nintendo, which allowed the raised “Nintendo” to slide through those holes.
Below is a selection of pirated disks showing creative variation:
NINTFENDO
NINTEN
NINJENDO
INTEND
NINIENDD
INTENDO
(BLANK)
MITSUYA
(VERY BLANK)
(VERY BLANK, TOO)
(BIG HOLES)
(BIG HOLES)
